


Priorities

by bistiles (alis)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Existential Angst, M/M, Other, unfulfilled relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 05:37:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1417045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alis/pseuds/bistiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has priorities. Sometimes, they make him lose things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Priorities

**Author's Note:**

> [[Ok, important: there's no actual Sterek in this ficlet. It's Stiles' POV about things. I don't know why but I thought 'What if Sterek couldn't be?' and I had this almost meta-ish idea that I wrote down.]]

When Stiles look back at it, he wonders if maybe they could have made it work. Sometimes he’ll stop, just a thought in the middle of so many he has all the time swarming his mind and this one thought will pull everything to a halt. A small, fleeting thing like thinking what if, just a tiny figment of an idea, imagining what he could have done differently. He thinks that and in the next moment, he is thrown down a maze of possibilities, of choices he never chose and where they would lead them.

 

If he’s completely honest with himself, he knows it would be next to impossible. There was just too much happening at the same time. Stiles has priorities in life, and they are deep set and engraved in stone. Scott is a priority; he’ll always be a priority, his first and best friend, his _brother._ His Dad is another priority and Stiles knows way too well the pain of losing a parent to ever risk losing his father for lack of planning and playing the game right. So he pays attention, he protects his father with everything he has, because while Scott is always a priority, Scott can actually defend himself in ways his father just cannot. Stiles still wakes up sweating and trembling, woken up by dreams of what it would be if he failed in one of those times where his father’s life was _this_ close of being lost. They are the first and foremost, his father up in the scale in comparison to Scott, but he won’t ever say that out loud. To be honest, Stiles thinks Scott knows, that he understands where Stiles stands, so everything is alright. His priorities then extend to those Scott holds dear, – Allison, Melissa (though Melissa he does for himself too, he loves her as well) – those Stiles hold dear: Lydia. Innocent people. Trying to stay alive.

 

Where would he fit Derek in all this?

 

He cares for Derek, he does. He tries to keep him alive when possible, but Derek is new, Derek isn’t essential, Derek isn’t a priority. Derek was a frenemie, someone to work with, but keep an eye on, so how could Stiles ever even guess that he would somehow along the way change stances in Stiles’ heart? Because Stiles wasn’t expecting it, oh no: Stiles was too busy trying to keep all his priorities in check, keeping everybody alive for his own sake to realize that somehow Derek was trying to force his way inside his priorities. And when Stiles did realize, when he noticed that he was impossibly linked, tied to Derek in ways he never _ever_ wanted to, he panicked. Stiles really panicked, full blown-panic attack, short breaths and shivering hands, tunneling vision and racing heart. How could he not see that coming, how could he let that happen?

 

How could he not realize that he had, somehow, done the same to Derek?

 

Stiles had too much in his plate, so much after the mess with the nogitsune. He could barely think and when he thought he would have the time to properly wind down and make sure something like that never happened again, something hit on them like a freight train _again_. He had to retrace his priorities because he lost one – and oh the guilty he felt for that. He failed, he failed _again_ and he could barely deal with the pain of seeing someone he loves suffering because he did a mistake. Again. Again again again. How many more lives would Stiles lose before he learned his lesson? The guilty is overwhelming and consuming, it’s eating him inside and he knows it. But he doesn’t have the time, he just doesn’t, so he pushes everything aside, uses the pain as a reminder, and a red flag for himself, as a horn to keep him awake. And Stiles keeps himself alert, puts himself down down down the list, because his priorities needs him and he had to be there. So Derek had to wait, Derek wasn’t important because everything Stiles was could wait for his priorities.

 

So he pushes things back, pushes and pushes, and shoves and hide and waits for the moment when maybe he’ll have the chance to deal with everything. But the time never comes, there’s always something else and Stiles knows his time is slipping away. He knows by the way Derek looks at him, he knows by the way _he_ looks at Derek, and deep down he just knows their time will pass, that they’ll completely miss the chance and that they won’t ever be. Maybe Stiles could have done something then, changed things, fought for them. But he doesn’t. Because there are other things to think about, other problems to address and he can wait.

 

So it waits and waits and waits until waiting becomes irrelevant and it stops being something with a solution – it’s already solved, a battle lost for w.o. And when Stiles sees what happened, how he completely missed _something_ , he can’t help but wonder, he can’t stop himself from mourning what he could have. And it gives him pause, it makes he think of the things he could have be, not if he had different priorities, because that was never up for changing, but what it would have be if he dealt with things in a different way. If he had himself into perspective a little more, if he cared a bit more, if he had maybe put Derek on the list for his own sake, for his own selfish desire, much as it is with the rest of the priorities. But he didn’t and it’s too late and from time to time the thought will come, it’ll wipe out everything else on Stiles’ mind and make him think. And for a moment or two, he’ll yearn and it’ll hurt, until he’s able to once again clear his mind and fill it with screaming, constant thoughts.

 

He can’t stop. He has priorities.


End file.
